Rebel Heroes Rise In Thrilling New Star Wars Rebels Trailer

Happy Star Wars day and May the Fourth be with you, Star Wars fans! It's the perfect day to celebrate everything we love about Star Wars and get excited about the Star Wars projects in the works. That includes Episode VII and of course, on the small screen, there's Star Wars Rebels to anticipate. The official trailer for the Disney series has arrived today and gives us a look at the adventure that awaits.

Star Wars Rebels is set during the time period between Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) and Episode IV (A New Hope), and centers on the rebellion that's forming as the Empire tightens its grip on the galaxy. The series will begin with a one-hour special that will air on Disney Channel, after which the actual series will air on Disney XD. Here's part of the description for the trailer, which lists off some of the characters and ships featured in the video.

Starring a small band of heroes -- Sabine, Kanan, Hera, Ezra, Zeb, and Chopper -- Star Wars Rebels is set in a time where the Empire rules through fear and shrouds the galaxy in darkness. This trailer offers many new glimpses at sequences from the show, including the starship Ghost chased by TIE Fighters; young Ezra watching as a Star Destroyer looms overhead; Stormtroopers marching; a zero-g fight between our heroes and Imperials; and Kanan, a secret Jedi, assembling his lightsaber and preparing for battle. It ends, however, with an Imperial officer reporting to the Inquisitor -- the Empire's Jedi hunter, seen and heard here for the first time.

We saw quite a bit of Chopper, the cranky droid, in the trailer, and he's mentioned in the above description as one of the heroic rebels gearing up for the fight. We learned about Chopper earlier this year, at which time Star Wars Rebels executive producer Dave Filoni described the grumpy droid by comparing him to R2-D2, saying "If R2's your favorite dog, Chopper's a cat." So I guess we should expect a fair amount of sass from that little guy, whose design is somewhat inspired by Ralph McQuarrie's original concept for R2-D2.

Disney's released some other videos focused on the Star Wars Rebels characters. Get to know Hera better here...